Last night, the below script was accidentally uploaded by a CBS staffer to the Internet Movie Script Database. It was removed just a few minutes later once the mistake was realised, but fortunately, we here at CrudeReviews.net were able to download it in the short time it was live, and we decided to share it with you here.

Are you all super excited for the Alex Kurtzman-led return of Captain Jean Luc Picard, starring the legendary Patrick Stewart? We certainly all are! #PicardisBack #StarTrekRocks #WeLoveStarTrek #ProgressiveSciFi

INT. PICARD’S READY ROOM
The camera pans across a table of Picard’s treasured memories. First we see his tin whistle, from that one where he lived the entire life of someone in a dying civilisation. Do you remember that one? It was really famous, everyone remembers that episode. The camera keeps panning, over to the ancient stone artefact, the Curly Rascal. Then a Polaroid photograph of Picard and Q, hanging out at the beach. Finally, four lights in a line. Do you remember that one? The one where he shouted “THERE ARE FOUR LIGHTS!”? Do you remember that? You remember that, don’t you?

The camera zooms out to show the whole ready room at a dutch angle. All the lights are blue, and everything’s dark. Behind his desk, PICARD sits in silence, grizzled, a rough scar down one side of his face, lifting a dumbbell in one arm. He stares at a screen in front of him, with the words “WAR REPORT” in large font at the top. There are red icons and lines on one half of the screen, and blue icons and lines on the other half of the screen.

The door chimes. Picard doesn’t look up.

PICARD
Enter.

In walks NUMBER ONE. She’s tall, of West Asian descent, and identified in all the show’s press releases as “Star Trek’s first Indian Muslim Lesbian!” She’s also half-Andorian, or something, with all of the personal drama that presumably entails.

NUMBER ONE
We’re almost ready to begin negotiations, Captain-Ambassador. As Starfleet’s top diplomat, it will be your job to bring peace to this sector. Before the entire Federation falls.

PICARD
Well, Number One, this war with [distant sound of dice rolling] THE ROMULANS and [sound of a dart thumping into a dartboard] THE JEM’HADAR, led by [sound of coin flip] THE BORG is taking its toll. The entire Alpha Quadrant could be wiped out soon if we don’t find a way to stop this dreadful war.

NUMBER ONE
Yes, wars are terrible. And thank you for so succinctly expositing the peril we currently face. It sounds like this awful, awful war could take nine, maybe even ten episodes to resolve.

PICARD
Agreed. Let’s get moving.

They walk out of the ready room together.

INT. THE SHUTTLE BAY
Picard, Number One and a Tactical Diplomacy Team enter the shuttle bay. They are all dressed in armoured space suits, carrying flashy new phaser rifles. They march past the shuttles straight to the rear door.

NUMBER ONE
Captain, aren’t we taking the shuttles?

PICARD
Not today, Number One. Today we need to be a little more direct. Ready?

The rear door opens, revealing a planet below them. The camera flies out of the door and pans back to an exterior shot of the ship, the U.S.S. Enterprise, NCC-1701-XXX. A heavy metal remix of the ‘Next Generation’ theme plays. The Enterprise is a sleek, futuristic ship with nacelles and everything. She’s Starfleet’s newest consular ship, armed with fifty billion photon torpedoes and the newly-designed “Peacebringer” anti-planet array.

Picard, Number One and team run and leap out of the shuttle bay whilst Black Sabbath’s ‘Iron Man’ plays non-diegetically.

EXT. THE PLANET’S SURFACE, DAY
WEYOUN (Do you remember him???) and SOME ROMULAN stare in horror at a holographic tactical display.

SOME ROMULAN
Weyoun, it’s the Enterprise, she’s in orbit!

WEYOUN
The Enterprise? She’s an Ethics-class consular gunship! And she can only be captained by one person…

SOME ROMULAN
(gasping)
Picard! Quickly, we must hide the children!

WEYOUN
(to a Jem’Hadar soldier)
Get the troops ready and prepare our defenses for an orbital diplomatic assault!

EXT. THE SKY, DAY
Picard, Number One and the Tactical Diplomacy Team plummet through the air, the front of their spacesuits glowing red hot because that’s what happens when you enter a planet’s atmosphere, so this is still technically science-fiction.

Suddenly, powerful LASER BLASTS fire up at them from the surface! Arcs of deadly green energy bolts fill the air. Two of Picard’s diplomatic staff are vaporised as soon as they are hit.

NUMBER ONE
Captain, we can’t withstand this amount of firepower! We have to ab-

She screams, an energy bolt striking her and covering her in green, coruscating energy ribbons. Why she doesn’t get vaporised like the other two is unknown. She howls in agony as her body gets twisted and contorted by the energy, breaking her bones and searing her skin. This goes on for at least six minutes. Eventually, her eyes explode and then her entire body explodes inside her spacesuit, filling it with a goopy, bloody mess.

PICARD
Number One! Well, she died doing what she loved – convincing people on the internet that this was still a progressive show with new ideas. It’s just up to us men now, boys!

The assault team cheers, unfazed by their losses or the unyielding anti-air fire that still fills the sky. They continue their descent to the enemy position. One of them speaks up.

TEAM MEMBER
Say, captain, did we ever find out why the enemy wanted to go to war with us? It seems like the Romulans would be hesitant to ally with such a destructive force as the Jem’Hadar, and in any case, wouldn’t the cost of a war with the Federation and occupation of planets outweigh any strategic benefit in the long term?

He immediately gets hit with a laser blast and incinerated.

PICARD
Any other questions?

There are none.

EXT. MILITARY BARRACKS, DAY
A ROMULAN OFFICER leads twenty soldiers in combat training.

ROMULAN OFFICER
Remember, as you fight, be brutal, and only communicate in grunts and growls. We’re the baddies in this war, so we can’t do anything that will in any way humanise us or allow the audience to develop any sympathy for us.

ROMULAN SOLDIER
But I’m fighting for the security of my empire and for the freedom of my loved ones!

ROMULAN OFFICER
No you are not, maggot! You are a nameless grunt! You will throw yourself in the way of phaser blasts and if you are lucky, you may hit a Federation soldier, thereby increasing the level of peril!

ROMULAN SOLDIER
Sir yes sir!

Just then, Picard smashes into the soldier from above, his armoured space suit crushing the green-blooded Romulan into a cloud of red mist and gore. AC/DC’s ‘Back In Black’ blares over the soundtrack.

Picard taps a button on the side of his helmet, and the whole helmet folds back and into nothing, revealing Picard’s face and bald head.

PICARD
We’re here to negotiate terms.

He shoots the Romulan officer in the face. The rest of the squad land behind him, and begin shooting and/or stabbing the rest of the Romulans. Picard kneels over the fallen body of the Romulan officer.

PICARD
Alas, the cost of war. It is so terrible a thing that we ruin and slaughter when peace might otherwise prevail. Oh! How I long for the days of peaceful exploration, where we can uphold Starfleet’s true ideals of mercy and discov-

His voice is drowned out by the screams of the Romulans around him.

INT. A COMMAND CENTRE
Weyoun and Some Romulan are now in a dingy, poorly-lit command centre, filled with Jem’Hadar and Romulan soldiers.

WEYOUN
He’s made planet fall! We should send three brigades of our best troops to slow him down!

SOME ROMULAN
Don’t be insane! He’s the Federation’s top diplomat! We don’t stand a chance in a fight against him. Do you think he would let us live if we surrender?

WEYOUN
It doesn’t look like we have much choice.

Picard kicks down the door and strides in, rifle in hand. He shoots all of the other Romulans and Jem’Hadar before they have chance to react. Weyoun yelps, and drops to his knees, his hands clasped together.

WEYOUN
Captain-Ambassador Picard, please! We surrender! Unconditionally! Spare our lives, and we will work with you to bring this war to an end! We see now that we were at fault, and we want to learn from Starfleet’s ways of peace and equality, so that we can be better ourselves!

PICARD
Up yours, dickhead.

Picard punches Weyoun in the head, so hard that his head spins around completely, and we hear the sound of his neck snapping. Picard points his rifle at Some Romulan.

PICARD
There are now sixty Starfleet Abdul Hamid-class gunships in orbit of this planet. Surrender this sector, or we will be forced to wipe out every living organism and turn this world into a barren tomb.

Some Romulan nods nervously, then carefully shuffles to a console at one side of the room. He presses a button, and on the display a large, red icon appears: “SURRENDER SECTOR”. He pushes it. On the other side of the room, a display labelled “WAR MAP” turns from red to blue. Little Starfleet badge symbols replace all of the Romulan symbols.

Picard nods. He taps his commbadge.

PICARD
This is Picard. Diplomacy accomplished. One to beam up.

He is consumed by the sparkly transporter effect and disappears.

INT. THE BRIDGE OF THE ENTERPRISE
Picard strides onto the bridge in full dress uniform. He addresses the crew.

PICARD
Today, a great victory was won for peace. Through careful negotiation, we were able to end the war in this sector. Although we still have the rest of the Alpha Quadrant to pacify, today proves that we can restore order to the Galaxy by embodying Starfleet’s ideals of ethics, co-operation, discovery and science. This is what it means to be Starfleet, and we have shown that diplomacy, not violence, is always the way to resolve our differences.

The crew applaud, some with tears in their eyes. An Admiral gets up from their weapons station and hangs six medals around Picard’s neck. Inspiring music plays. The audience screams in joy about how Star Trek has returned to its moralistic roots.

Then, an alarm sounds. The OPS OFFICER gasps.

OPS OFFICER
Captain! There’s another ship on an intercept course! I’m not sure who it is, but I’m getting some data coming through now.

On his screen, in large font, are the words “COMMANDING OFFICER:” and below that, four empty spaces. Slowly, one by one, the empty spaces are filled with a letter each. “D”. Then “A”. Then “T”.

OPS OFFICER
Sir! It’s the Cheney!

PICARD
That’s… Commander Data’s ship!

That’s right, Commander Data! Do you remember him? The robot guy? He’s in this too! COMMANDER DATA! HE’S IN THIS SHOW AND YOU RECOGNISE HIM! TUNE IN NEXT WEEK AND YOU MIGHT SEE HIM! COMMANDER DATA! WATCH THE NEXT EPISODE, ASSHOLES!

Well, that looks exciting! We really like the bit where Picard shot all those people, that looks really good. And what about Number One? Could she be the new progressive face of Star Trek? Is this show leading the way for representation of minorities in sci-fi? Probably! The only thing that was really missing from this script was some kind of mystery plot or hidden identity, but who knows what crazy twists and turns they have in store for us in the other episodes? We can’t wait!

For ages, I’ve been trying to put my finger on what it was about ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ that threw me off. There’s some element to it, some quality, that makes it stand apart from other Trek shows, and for the longest time I couldn’t figure out what.

But I’ve finally done it. I’ve figured out what it’s all about.

‘Star Trek: Discovery’ is a Star Trek fan fiction written by Lal, daughter of Data.

You may think I’m crazy, but Trek has pulled this shit before. There’s a precedent for “stories within stories” that backs me up. But that’s not all.

Before we dive into the specifics, let’s get the background out of the way:

Who Is Lal?

Lal is a robot. Well, an android. Specifically, a “Soong-type” android created by Data, who is also a “Soong-type” android. Data created Lal in order to simulate the human experience of procreation – of producing a child.

After Data activates Lal, she chooses her own gender and appearance and she begins learning about life. It’s a really charming little story and pretty classic Next Gen – Lal even joins the ranks of “Women Who Have Fallen for Riker Despite Being Better Than Him in Every Way“, which is a Trek staple.

Lal’s fate is a tragic one (I would post a “spoiler warning” but the episode’s twenty-seven years old). Data’s not as capable as his own creator when it comes to building androids, and Lal soon starts to malfunction, eventually shutting down altogether. She only lived for a few weeks, and… and then she…

I’m sorry, but just going back over this old episode has me close to actually in tears. Just, this is what good Sci Fi is about – using extreme settings to explore the human condition. And, I just… I… let’s move on.

The Fan Fiction Theory

Okay, so, when you at the cast of ‘Discovery’ you realise that, despite it being a long running narrative, everybody is a one-character. Cadet Tilly is ‘The Awkward Sidekick’, Landry is ‘The Mean One’, Lorca is ‘The Bad Captain’, Stamets is ‘The Weird Guy’, Saru is ‘Fucking Useless’ and Ash Tyler The Human is ‘The Hot One Who Is A Human’.

These are all really simplistic characters with really basic motivations. Burnham and Ash The Human are falling in love because they’re both attractive and he doesn’t hate her. Tilly wants to be a captain but is for now just along for the ride. Stamets wants to do science, so he does science. Lorca wants to Win The War. Saru is just glad to be part of things, also he’s scared all the time and he can totally run really really fast and he has these little frills that pop out when he’s really scared.

All of these characters match exactly how an intelligent yet juvenile mind would view the crew of a starship. Picard is a stern, duty-bound authority figure, so of course that’s exactly how Lal would describe all authority figures. When someone is mean to Lal, she hasn’t yet learned to appreciate that there may be a reason that they’re lashing out – and so we end up with Landry, a rampant force of anger and hate.

Lal never experienced a war, or a military conflict, and so when she writes about it, she does so in basic terms. War is bad. People get hurt in wars. Wars involve shooting and maps. We want to win wars, because losing a war is bad. The notion that a huge conflict will have severe cultural impacts and unexpected consequences is alien to Lal because she has no grasp of these more abstract terms yet. The crew of the Discovery are in a war, and they need to win it. That’s as far as Lal is capable of exploring the matter.

Author Insertion

Let’s take a quick look at Michael Burnham. She’s a peculiar character, grounded firmly in machine-like logic yet struggling with emotions she can barely control. She hasn’t developed goals or objectives or her own, she just finds herself on Discovery and gets on with stuff. She struggles with intimacy. She has a renowned yet emotionally incapable father.

Remind you of anyone?

Burnham is Lal, writing herself into her own story. She even has the idealised best friend in Tilly, the idealised boyfriend in Ash the Human. She makes friends with a magical teddy bear.

Look at the people around her. Lal is surrounded by people who she doesn’t understand and who don’t understand her, who threaten her. But in her story, Burnham is surrounded by people who pose no threat to her. Any that do are quickly offed – the prisoners who try to fight her in the mess hall are never seen again. Her teddy bear gets rid of the nasty Landry lady. Saru doesn’t like her, but he’s also a scaredy cat, and he’s ultimately just jealous of her and how amazing she is.

Lorca might be scary, but he looks after Burnham, he protects her. Georgiou, the other authority figure in Burnham’s life, was also protective of her – she was kind, and she loved Burnham, and is in every way the perfect mother figure for her – the perfect mother that Lal never had. The fact that she gets eaten by aliens is… probably a sign that Lal has issues, but we knew that already.

A Child’s Point of View

Indeed, using pseudo-cannibalism as a throw-away plot point is exactly the sort of thing a juvenile would write in their first work of fiction, because they wouldn’t understand the implicit horror of what they were writing. Icky, scary monsters eat people all the time – and children can wrap themselves in horror because they don’t have the ability to put it into context.

Lal can write a story about the Brave Captain getting locked up and tortured and then freeing himself by Being Brave, because she isn’t programmed to process the broader themes of such a traumatising ordeal. Violence is scary to Lal, but she can write about torture without comprehending its abhorrence because, it’s just more violence, right?

How about the Large-igrade, Burnham’s magic teddy bear friend? Burnham and her made-to-order best friend say a prayer for the teddy and let it go free, and in so doing, they magically heal it. Because that’s how things work in a child’s world – intentions and wishes rule over consequences and causality.

Hidden Profundity

And this is the secret genius of ‘Discovery’. It’s Star Trek, but through the lens of a child’s eye. The wider scope of the subject matter is never explored, because the writer can’t, and wouldn’t want to. When Lal is threatened with being separated from her father, she can barely handle the emotions that surge up within her over this complex and confusing situation.

Discovery is the natural reaction to that – it’s a series of simplistic stories and one-note characters, creating a world which can accept someone despite her intellectual and emotional separation from any of her peers. It’s Star Trek, but realised as the ideal playground for a scared child.

Which makes it weird that they keep saying “fuck” and everyone’s getting their throats slit. Maybe Lal’s just a hack.

I’ve had a series of complaints sent to me regarding your conduct over the last few weeks. If the stories inside these letters are true, then I think we need to have a discussion about acceptable behaviour aboard a starship, however I thought it only fair that you be given the chance to review the complaints yourself so you may give me your own interpretation of what happened.

Regards,

Picard.

Dear Captain,

As you may be aware, a few days ago I attempted to simulate the gaining of body weight, a common experience for humans of my age. The crew and other officers were very supportive, particularly Doctor Crusher, who helped me to accurately capture the built-up subcutaneous bulk necessary for an authentic representation.

Sadly, there was one exception to this supportiveness, which was Commander Riker. I found it highly inappropriate of him to follow me around the corridors with his trombone, playing what can only be described as a series of ‘sad notes’ as I walked to my various destinations.

Though I had expressed a desire to also be subjected to the ‘ribbing’ that many overweight individuals suffer in some primitive societies, I feel that Commander Riker’s elaborate efforts were particularly over-the-top and unrealistic by most standards. Especially his reassignment of Engineering Team Four-B to reconstruct the entrance to my quarters, such that I was unable to fit through the doorway without considerable difficulty.

I am yet to raise the issue with Commander Riker, and would appreciate any advice you could offer on confronting him in a constructive and friendly manner. Although I have since returned to my normal weight and size, I feel his actions may have had a hurtful effect on other members of the crew who are themselves naturally of a larger size.

Kind regards,

Data.

Jean-Luc,

Will’s been bothering me again. The other day he came into sickbay with another Parrises Squares injury, which is pretty normal. After I patched him up, he started asking questions about chemical compounds – things like the best way to replicate methylamine, tropane alkaloids and ergotamine. When I asked him why he wanted to know, he just said “don’t worry about it.” A few days later, he came in and just straight-up asked how to make to “the good stuff, you know, the real hard shit.” Again, I asked him what it was for, but he just told me to stop worrying and then left again.

Jean-Luc, if he wants to know more about chemical preparations I don’t mind him asking, but I would just feel a lot better if I knew why. Would you have a word with him, make sure he’s not doing something ill-advised?

Beverly.

I received this one a couple of days afterwards, Number One, and I certainly hope the two aren’t related:

Captain I love this ship everything is so shiny and I love how fast it goes and how all the stars shoot past like little fairies and I love the seats everything is so comfy and how the jeffries tubes are like ants nests and I love how your head looks like an ice moon but I hope you aren’t sleeping with my mother but if you were I’d be your dad no wait you’d be my dad and then we could go fishing together and you could teach me how to make wine that tasted like warp speed I love you love from Wesley.

Captain Picard,

I must strongly protest at the actions of Commander Riker over the past few weeks. On my birthday, shortly after my return from the Bat’leth tournament on Forcas III, I explained to Commander Riker my distaste for “surprise parties.” Counsellor Troi confirmed that she had persuaded him not to host one for me, for which I was most grateful.

However, since then Commander Riker has hosted no less than twenty-three surprise parties for me, all within the space of a month. They were mostly held in my personal quarters in a gross violation of my privacy, however he has also held four in Ten Forward, three at my Mok’bara classes and one at a briefing of my security staff.

This is completely unacceptable, and I must insist that you make him stop! I have repeatedly asked him to cease these childish events, and each time he has promised that he would, only to later tell me that he thought “it would be more of a surprise if I thought he had stopped.”

I have even requested a more secure locking mechanism on my quarters, but I did not realise that Commander Riker was a member of the Accommodation Administration Committee – and I did not like the way he was smiling at me as the committee chair offered to install security-coded maglocks on my door.

Please have this infantile display brought to an end at once!

Yours respectfully,

Lieutenant Commander Worf.

Captain,

Thank you for your congratulations on my recent promotion. It will take me some time to adjust to the increased responsibility, especially whilst maintaining my responsibilities as ship’s counsellor, but I look forward to the challenge.

I need to talk to you about the application process, though. Will was assessing me, as you know, and as you also probably know I struggled with one of the later parts of the test, the “engineering test.” It took me some time, and some repeated attempts, to figure out that it was necessary for me to sacrifice one life to save many. I am grateful to Will for taking me through it and helping me succeed, but some of his behaviour during the test was just troubling.

After I figured out that I had to send Geordi to his death, Will said there was a second part to the test. It seemed like more of the same – this time, a security problem, with hostages. The thing is, it turned out that the solution was once again to order Geordi to his death. I thought maybe that was a coincidence, but then in part three there was another simulation, even more elaborate, which required me to sacrifice Geordi again. We got to part five, with an incredibly contrived scenario which somehow required me to stab Geordi to death with a micro-optic drill before I decided enough was enough.

When I confronted Will about it, he said he was surprised I made it as far as part three, never mind part five, and then said I must have “some serious issues.” I told him he had taken things too far but he just laughed and told me that I needed to speak to a psychiatrist – I hope you appreciate why I didn’t find that funny.

Captain, Will and I go back a long time but this was too much, and I’m worried he’ll do the same thing to other officers – I don’t think Data would cope well with that kind of “test”, and I’m certain Geordi would object.

Please let me know if you need any more information.

Troi.

Sir,

I don’t know how, but somehow Commander Riker has managed to change all of the access codes on all of the transporter consoles again, this time to “stupidpaddy123”. I know it was Riker because last week he invited me as guest of honour to “Interstellar Scotland Day” in Ten Forward, and introduced me as “the ship’s resident walking stereotype, Paddy O’Toolbag”. I told him I was Irish and he told me to stop boring everyone and just play a tune on the haggis, and when I told him I wouldn’t he started playing ‘God Save The Queen’ on his trombone and then asked why I wasn’t singing along.

Regardless of the offensiveness of his remarks, he shouldn’t be messing around with security codes on any ship system, it’s a security issue and it makes life harder for me and my colleagues.

I’d also appreciate it if you could have him apologise for reprogramming my replicator to only produce boiled potatoes regardless of what I order. It must have taken him weeks to manually reconfigure every recipe in the databanks.

All the best,

Chief of the Potato People.

Sir,

That last message was meant to be signed off with “Chief O’Brien”, but he’s messing with my auto-correct now, too. Could you have a word?

All the best,

Chief Curly O’Curlycurls.

Number One, I hope you see why these reports are so troubling. Speaking of events in Ten Forward, I was less than pleased with your antics last week. I was quite excited to attend the First Annual Frontier Archaeology Symposium, so you’ll understand my disappointment to walk in to find myself at “Johnny Luke’s Head Polishing Masterclass”. Although I am impressed at how many of the crew and senior officers you managed to convince to wear bald caps.

Please see me at 0900 tomorrow, and please make sure you’ve hard a good hard think about what it is you’d like to say for yourself.